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A military parade commemorating the 9th Congress of the Workers' Party of Korea is held at Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang on the night of the 25th. / Yonhap

Ahead of the July 27 Armistice Agreement day, which North Korea claims as its Victory Day, the regime has begun tightening internal solidarity by highlighting its wartime military achievements against the United States during the Korean War.

On July 2, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published an article titled "Military Miracles That Brought About the July 27 Victory: The Victory in the Battle of Jumunjin," propaganda claiming that four torpedo boats achieved the heroic feat of destroying a US heavy cruiser and light cruiser during the Korean War. On the same day, the Rodong Sinmun evaluated the Korean War as the "first confrontation of power" between North Korea and the US, as well as a major showdown between the democratic and imperialist camps after World War II. The state-run newspaper claimed, "The struggle to repel the armed invasion by the allied imperialist forces was not only a war to defend the fatherland, but also a righteous holy war to safeguard world peace and security." This repeated their long-standing logic that the Korean War, which began with their invasion of the South, was a defensive war against imperialist aggression.

North Korea has been using Korean War-related propaganda since last month as a catalyst to solidify the regime. On June 28, the KCNA claimed the Korean War was a "war of defense against aggression by allied imperialist forces led by the US imperialists," and on June 30, it flaunted the achievements of war veterans by citing past instances of shooting down US bombers.

North Korea has routinely launched propaganda campaigns to incite hostility against the US ahead of the Korean War anniversary, leveraging it to strengthen domestic solidarity. The recent reports from North Korean media outlets since last month can be interpreted within this context.

This year marks the 73rd anniversary of the Armistice Agreement. Although it is not a milestone year—which North Korea typically celebrates with grand ceremonies every five or ten years—some quarters raise the possibility of a military parade. This follows foreign media observations capturing a large number of troop transport trucks at Mirim Airfield in Pyongyang.

North Korea has previously held non-milestone military parades to mark the Armistice Agreement in 2014 and last year. However, the 2014 event was held on a small scale in front of the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, and last year's event was conducted under the name of a "commemorative march ceremony of symbolic columns from the Fatherland Liberation War period," leading to evaluations that they did not quite reach the scale of a formal military parade. Accordingly, possibilities are being raised that this year's event might also be held on a small or symbolic scale. Nevertheless, analysts note that further monitoring of trends is required to determine whether the equipment and personnel currently identified at Pyongyang's Mirim Airfield are indeed intended for a military parade.

                                                                                                          Mok Yong-jae